I did not understand why consolidating all the assembly and production at one location will help in producting cheaper batteries. Won't innovation bring the price down or the supply chain costs are so much that are driving the price, which i highly doubt.

We've had this conversation several times. The conclusion was that existing fuel cells are inefficient (40-60%), costly, and require purified fuels - typically hydrogen. Hydrogen is the worst possible choice of fuel. Typically one uses natural gas to generate hydrogen using steam reforming (70% efficient). You require expensive new infrastructure to generate, store and distribute all that hydrogen (inefficient as well as either compressing or cryogenic cooling wastes a lot of energy). It would be far simpler and cheaper to make cars run directly on natural gas instead - but that can't reach the efficiency of an EV.

When you consider that in the future the majority of electricity will come from renewable sources (eg. solar panels on your roof), the efficiency of EV goes up even further.

A couple months back, Toyota has announced a fuel cell vehicle. It comes with enough attention although I remember Honda has one for years. I wonder what is keeping fuel cell from moving forward. Why Musk is not considering it?

Heh heh. Two responses to that: 1. Have you seen video of burning Teslas? 2. Have you lit a match to a fuel tank?

A pinhole in a hydrogen tank would not cause an explosion. If you light a match to it, it will simply give you a flame, just like in your gas kitchen stove (obviously size dependent on pressure). To me the biggest problems of storing hydrogen are that it has to be in a high pressure vessel, multiple thousands of PSI, and that even then, it tends to deplete itself like a battery, when sitting unused.

Which is why there's always the hydrogen reformer option. Use gasoline, diesel, or a biofuel, and create hydrogen on board as you need it. This new Tesla facility could spend some research dollars on these schemes.

But we've been over this already in other threads. The nice thing about H2 as a fuel, the opposite argument goes, is that it can be manufactured locally, in facilities far cheaper than gasoline refineries. I'll buy that.

5. You will end up with a truly interesting vehicle, much lighter than your current one, with longer range and incredibly faster "refueling" times. Imagine being able to actually drive a car for more consecutive hours than it takes to refuel it! What a great concept!

I have been waiting for Elon to show up one day with a glowing power cell in his chest. Maybe this factory will build it...

One interesting aspect of this press release was the announcement that the factory would be "...somewhere in the SouthWest". There were four states listed, including Texas. Texas has a state law prohibiting direct car sales, thanks to the political influence of traditional dealerships. Tesla sells directly. How much do you want to bet that Texas changes that law?

Datasheets.com Parts Search

185 million searchable parts
(please enter a part number or hit search to begin)

My Mom the Radio StarMax MaxfieldPost a commentI've said it before and I'll say it again -- it's a funny old world when you come to think about it. Last Friday lunchtime, for example, I received an email from Tim Levell, the editor for ...

A Book For All ReasonsBernard Cole1 CommentRobert Oshana's recent book "Software Engineering for Embedded Systems (Newnes/Elsevier)," written and edited with Mark Kraeling, is a 'book for all reasons.' At almost 1,200 pages, it ...